


innocence

by ironicpotential, TaFuilLiom



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:19:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironicpotential/pseuds/ironicpotential, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: Years couldn’t erase those embraces. Neither could Cadmus. Neither, apparently, could his actions.After seven years, they finally find Jeremiah.





	innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Our last fic of 2018. Thank you to all who read and commented on our fics this year, and we hope you stick with us into the next!

He stands at her approach. His fingers linger on the plexiglass of his cell, and her skin itches with the memory of his arms holding her close. His comforting warmth after she would wipe out on her surfboard. Squeezing her shoulder after a win at the science fair. That last tearful embrace at the DEO, the first time he was recovered. 

Years couldn’t erase those embraces. Neither could Cadmus. 

Neither, apparently, could his actions. 

She sets her jaw and steels herself.

It has been seven long years, but even so, time has been kind to him. His hair is speckled with the type of grey characteristic of a man his age, but the youthfulness he’d always carried remains. The darker part of her mind suggests that maybe this is a credit to his cybernetic enhancements, but she pushes those thoughts down.

His eyes crinkle with something akin to pride. “Director.”

Alex sighs and wishes, not for the first time, that J’onn were there to bolster her. The title no longer hangs as heavy around her neck, but today the extra responsibility is a weight she wishes she didn’t have to carry alone. 

“Dad,” she chastises.

His mouth quirks up at the corner as he slips his hands into his pockets, his casual demeanour a sharp contrast to the sterility of the DEO holding block. “I can’t be proud of my girl?”

“Not after last time.”

She paces the length of the corridor, aware of her father’s eyes tracking her every move. 

“You understand you’ve been with Cadmus a long time. We have to assess whether you’re safe or not.”

“So I’m a threat, now.” 

She stops in front of the cell once more. “After last time, yes.” 

The reminder is harder, and for the first time, her father flinches under her gaze.

With a whoosh, the pneumatic doors to _Holding Block A_ slide apart. Two agents enter, saluting as they approach. Alex takes the tablet that Agent Diaz offers, motioning for her and her colleague to stand down. This isn’t an official interrogation by any means. That would come later, when the suits from Washington arrive. But it falls to the Director to arrange for initial questioning, and although Alex trusts Agents Diaz and Williams with her life, she cannot allow any harm to come to anyone under her watch. She cannot allow this man to pull the wool over their eyes once more.

She runs through the standard checklist at a brisk pace.  _ Do you know who you are? What is the year? Do you know who the President is?  _

His responses are quick and correct. Whatever he was up to at Cadmus for all these years, he wasn’t kept out of the loop on current affairs. Alex isn’t entirely sure she likes what that could mean. 

He asks more questions than he answers. Not about DEO business— Alex is very careful not to give too much away about their operations against Cadmus— but about Alex herself. Then he asks about her mother, and her sister. But even then, she skirts his inquiries. 

She jots down her final observations on the tablet and hands it back to Agent Diaz, dismissing them both back to the hub of the DEO. 

As she moves to follow, her father speaks up once more, “How is Maggie?”

The mention of the detective stops her in her tracks. The phantom feeling of the ring around her left finger still remains. 

Alex lowers her head. “We...we broke up years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” 

And he sounds it. After all these years, he still manages the kind of apology that only a father can give to his daughter during a heartbreak.

Alex winds her arms around herself. She would have given anything to hear those words from her father years ago, when she needed his shoulder to cry on. When she needed him to tell her that everything was going to be okay. That the pain was temporary. That it was only a skinned knee, and not the complete removal of her heart.

“We were engaged.” She takes a deep breath, hoping her voice doesn’t break. “She didn’t want kids.”

Her father reaches out to her once more, but again he is stopped by the walls of his cell. Instead his fingers spread out against the surface of the glass. An open palm. Inviting her to open up. “Do you have someone now?” 

She swallows the lump in her throat and counts the tiles on the floor. “I’m not ready to talk about this yet.”

“Understood.”

She spins on her heel, willing the door to slide open faster. Once she’s outside, she collapses against the wall of the hallway to take a few deep breaths to steady herself.

Even years after the split, it pains her to think about it. It was so visceral, it reverberates through the years. She remembers every harsh word that was volleyed back and forth. All of the tears, all of the begging and pleading— on both of their parts. That final day spent together, skin upon skin, tangled up in sheets that were once  _ theirs _ . Sheets that would be thrown out, as no amount of washing could erase the scent of Maggie’s shampoo. 

She slips her engagement and wedding rings out of her pocket and wiggles them back around her finger as she turns the corner. But she doesn’t truly relax until she catches sight of her wife sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs in the hallway, their daughter curled up, asleep in her lap. She couldn’t tell her father about them. She needed to protect them. 

She strides down the corridor, and her wife’s shoulders sag in relief at the sight of her. She offers a tight smile, more a grimace. Just a sign to show she is okay.   

She didn’t lie, exactly. She just left out the reconciliation.  

“Well, how did it go?” Maggie asks softly.

Alex kneels down beside the chair. “I couldn’t tell him.” 

_ I couldn’t guarantee our safety if I did. _

The thought echoes through her mind as she brushes a stray curl behind the three-year-old’s ear. 

“Hey sleepyhead. We need to go home,” Alex coos. 

Jamie grumbles around the thumb in her mouth, rubbing her eyes with the other small fist. She tries to bury herself further into Maggie’s chest, and Alex softens at the sight.

Maggie murmurs into Jamie’s hair, “I heard Officer Pickles is going to steal all the dino nuggets if we don’t get home in time.”

Jamie’s head springs up, suddenly animated. “No!”

Alex tickles the young girl’s stomach, a grin stretching across her face as Jamie shrieks in delight. “Yup! We need to go make sure he doesn’t eat them all!”

Later, while Maggie cleans up after dinner, Alex tucks Jamie into bed, perching next to her to read her a bedtime story. It’s the same one that Jamie has requested every night for three weeks. And while just last night, she had confessed to Maggie that she fantasized about throwing the book from the balcony of the DEO, she has since changed her tune. After tonight, she would read it every time Jamie asks and a thousand times after. 

Anything for her little girl.

Maggie joins her after Jamie falls asleep, halfway through the story as usual. Alex feels her hand on the back of her shoulder, steady and strong, her rock through everything. Maggie doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. They’ve always been able to communicate without words, and Maggie knows when to push and when to just stand beside her in support. 

“I couldn’t kill him,” Alex says. “He betrayed us, hurt J’onn, put us all in danger, and I couldn’t kill him.” 

The memory of that night in the forest is still seared into her mind. She had stood there, staring down the barrel of her gun at the man that had betrayed her— betrayed them all— and she had faltered. He was an agent of Cadmus, a criminal and a traitor, but he was also her father. When she had the chance to pull the trigger, all she could see was the man who had once tucked her in at night. The man who had promised to always love her, no matter what. 

Yet she had been twenty-eight, a trained agent; and while his betrayal had hurt, she knew that she would heal. She knew that while J’onn had been injured, he was tough and would pull through. They both knew what their job entailed. They were aware of the danger. But Jamie- 

The girl lets out a small snore, then curls up on her side, tugging her stuffed otter closer as she sticks her thumb back in her mouth. Alex pulls the covers over her daughter’s small shoulders and runs her thumb over the shell of her ear. 

Jamie wasn’t a DEO agent. She was an innocent. Defenceless.

And over Alex’s dead body would Jeremiah Danvers be laying a hand on her daughter or her wife. 

Finally, she looks up. “This time, I won’t hesitate.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! You didn't think we'd have Alex marry another woman, did you? Let us know what you thought in the comments!


End file.
